At the Finish Line
by MRAY 4TW
Summary: It had been a day full of ups and downs, and at the very last, Vanellope bears witness to her only friend Ralph's unknowingly last words. There's good in everyone...any 'bad' guy can make a change for the better, to become a good guy, a hero. But do good guys finish last after all? Do they even get to finish? (One Shot)


**Hello, everyone, this is MRAY 4TW. Welcome to my one-shot fic on the movie 'Wreck-It Ralph'. Please enjoy and if you want, leave a review.**

"Ralph, it's not going to work!" I shouted to him even though I was sitting on his shoulder next to his ear. It was that loud, 'cause the buzzing of the cy-bugs was deafening.

"We gotta try!" Ralph yelled as he ran along with everyone else, trying to make himself heard over the sound of the world ending around us. _My_ world.

I had always known. I always have.

In the past, I had made attempts. That's all they were; just attempts. _Failed_ attempts.

But I actually allowed myself to dare to hope that this time, things would be different. For the first time, please let things be different!

But this was not to be. As my mountain-of-a-friend Ralph ran full tilt to the tunnels, I was knocked clear off of his shoulders where he had been carrying me so that we could travel faster. Some sort of blue-tinted barrier had appeared in the tunnel that led to the central hub that kept me here. As always, the wall that it was had kept me here, imprisoned with the people who hated me just for being a wee bit different.

This time, despite the fact that everything I knew in the game I was in was being destroyed from the inside out, the barrier was still up; it was keeping me inside to watch the fallout with a front row seat while everyone else was far away, safe.

"Kid!"

"Ralph, I told you, I can't leave the game…" I pressed my hands forward, and like each and every time in the past, the barrier appeared where I touched, keeping me from leaving. Ralph though, he wouldn't have any of it. He had always been like a brute with excessive force, and it was usually useful for just muscling his way through problems.

He scooped me up in his large hands and continued to try to push me through the barrier. As always, the barrier just pushed even harder against me, and I was getting sandwiched between a nearly-unstoppable force and an immovable object. No matter what I told him, he wouldn't listen to my cries in his futile efforts to get me through. "It's no use!"

In the end, I had to glitch out of his grasp, and I reappeared behind him and landed on the ground. He turned slowly and fell on one knee, and I only needed to take one look at his face to see that he felt utterly defeated. It was all I could do to gently lay my hand on his, to at least comfort him in the fact that despite his efforts, I was doomed to die. "It's okay Ralph."

It was almost as I was saying that mostly for myself. To console me. But I could see that he would be stubborn, and he'd go down with me along with the game. I couldn't allow that. "Just go. Go without me."

Somewhere off to my right, Sgt. Calhoun was speaking to Fix-It Felix Jr. He had an objection to her stance on blowing up the exit of Sugar Rush to keep the cy-bugs inside and as to not escape to infect the other games in the arcade. "But what about this game?"

"Nothing we can do about it," she said shortly. "Without a beacon, there's no way to stop these monsters."

Looking up to Ralph, I could see realization dawn on his face as he got up and gazed towards my home in the Diet Cola Mountain with the Mentos for a ceiling. He started moving off towards Sgt. Calhoun's hoverboard and got on, but before I could follow him, he told me to stay with with Felix. "Ralph, where are you going?" The woman queried with concern.

"I got some wrecking to do! I'll meet you at the finish line!" And with that, my first and only friend glided away through the air, dashing off into the stew of homicidal creatures.

Those words…they should have made me feel better. But all they did was fill me with worry…

…

…

…

Sgt. Calhoun's bullets finally ran dry in all of her weapons. We were all forced to back away from the still advancing horde of cy-bugs. Felix and Calhoun were able to fully retreat back into the tunnel that led to safety, but in my worst moment on repeat, the barrier kept me from escaping. For all my needs to escape, I couldn't get it; it was kept from me. The cy-bugs continued their relentlessapproach. Wanton destruction was all they craved; I could see it in their eyes.

I was alone; they would tear me apart.

I felt like crying. Instead, I held back on the tears. As my eyes began to gaze up at the sky, I saw what looked like the best thing in my life being held captive by a twisted and merged form of Turbo/King Candy and a cy-bug. I thought things couldn't get any worse…and as usual, I was wrong.

Ralph fought his way out of the grasp of King Candy, and began to fall out of the sky like a rock, straight for Diet Cola Mountain. My heart sunk in my chest; he was going to die. "Ralph!" There was no question about it. I had to save him! I had to! I ran forward towards the cy-bugs, and before they could sink their claws into me, I glitched out of the way, and continued to instant-glitch my way to keep moving as fast as possible. It had its range, and I saw that there'd be no way for me to get to Ralph in time. I needed to go faster!

At the base of the hill of my starting point, I saw an abandoned racecar, made mostly out of chocolate cake. A racer must have left it there. Spying my chance, I glitched inside, and started it up quickly, before glitching myself and the car to pick up speed to accelerate. There was so little time!

The glitching…it took a lot out of me. But I didn't give up. I hightailed it to the mountain that was about ready to explode; it was like I was on a suicide mission. But this was for my friend!

My only friend…

I maneouvered into the mountain through the wall like the usual and passed through, before I glitched again to get myself on the track quickly. I glanced up and I saw Ralph falling. He was falling along with the mentos and would die the second he fell into the blazing hot springs. I couldn't let that happen. "Ralph…no." I whispered, before trying my best to glitch even faster. My own safety didn't matter anymore. I had to save Ralph!

Finally, I made it to the breakaway strawberry-wafer ramp. The car was maxed out at top speed, and I felt like I had the energy for only a few more glitches but that wasn't going to stop me. I drove onto the ramp and flew across, looking forward to seeing if I could catch Ralph. I was so sure that Ralph would be right in front of me.

He wasn't.

In that second, I glanced all around…

I spied him. He was _below me._ My timing was one second…too late.

I was still in mid-air, looking down. In that split-second, I could see him hugging my homemade medal tightly to his chest and for the first time, he looked so small to me. And yet, he had never seemed so big before to me since the first time I met him. With a heart to match.

"Ralph!" I screamed as I watched him plummet. He looked up, and just before he fell into the hot springs along with the mentos, he smiled at me. He was at peace.

I wasn't.

He fell into the broiling cola, and flickered out with a dying light. It was then that the mentos finally reacted to the cola underneath the surface, and began going off like explosions.

 **=X=X=**

I couldn't see. Not with all the tears in my eyes. They ran down my cheeks and dripped down off of my chin as I limped towards my original car that had crashed on the sidelines of the track. The tears…and me…just couldn't stop. Every part of me hurt from my rough tumble outside of the mountain when I had glitched out to escape the explosion, but the part that hurt the most was my heart. Why him? Why Ralph? Why was this game so dead-set on making my life miserable?

It had only been a day. One day that swirled with all kinds new things in my life. Meeting another game character in the choco-mint swamp by the name of Ralph who was weird to say the least, then spotting a coin (turned out to be a medal) that I could use to buy my way into a race, my own dreams of getting a chance to race…

The car…

I finally made it to the car, and stumbled to a kneel beside it while trying to wipe my tears away with one of my long sleeves. As my dumb luck would have it, all that was filling my vision were our signatures on the side.

 _Made by Vanellope_  
 **AND RALPH**

This was it. That's all there was. This was all I would have to remember him by. I ran a thumb over his signature while tears began welling up again. "He's gone…" I whispered lowly, still trying to get a grip on my emotions. I got up and began to clear all of the candy debris from in front of the car. After kicking away the last of it, I got back into the car and started the ignition. While shifting into first gear, I kept my left foot on the clutch before easing off slowly while putting some pressure the go pedal. I was moving off slowly off of the sideline patch before I edged off onto the track. It was here I slowed down almost to a crawl, nearly completely stalling as I looked all around me, taking it all in.

This was not where I had imagined myself to be by the end of the day when I had gotten up this morning. It took one day to go from zero, then to ten, then five, then ten, then five, then negative ten. It was a hills and valleys all day today. And now here I was; not sure what level this was, but with all the destruction all around me, it was in the negatives for sure, no matter if I was on my way to the finish line.

The finish line.

My vision started blurring again with tears, as everything started looking runny like syrup and merged together out of focus. For so long, I wanted to be able to race, to cross that line, to win. Only one guy could have made all of that possible and in just one day, it was all coming true. But it wasn't worth it that Ralph had to die to save the game, to save me. It just wasn't.

The line was in shambles; the sign that said that there was a finish line was wrecked by the cy-bug attack. But it was still crossable; there wasn't a cy-bug in sight to stop me like earlier. Not even Felix and Calhoun was around, maybe they were back up at the tunnel.

Just me and the line.

I gritted my teeth and stomped the stopper pedal. If I crossed that line, I might as well have been spitting on Ralph; it was his sacrifice to save my life as well as the game. Why should I cross the line? It didn't matter anymore. "I'm sorry, Ralph," I muttered. My lips curled while I frowned. "I…just…couldn't save you in time. I wish you were here. I really..." I started to tear up again, "do. I really do."

It was then that I felt the car moving again, and I looked up. "Huh?" My foot wasn't on the go pedal, and I looked behind me. There was no one at the back of the car; the car was moving on its own, and the land was _flat_. "What?"

The car was inching forward by itself _after_ I had come to a complete stop.

I had to think. Was…was this a sign? I wiped away my tears but ended up smearing it into a stain on my face. "Fix-It? Sarge?"

There was no answer. Of course, there wasn't. But the car continued to move slowly forward. In fact, I was almost at the finish line, but then the car came to a complete stop maybe a few inches before it drove over. It was then I realized; it was a **sign**. It had to be. "Ralph?"

No response.

Ralph had been right. He met me at the finish line, just like his parting words had said.

"Ralph? If you're out there," I whispered gratefully before trying to gulp away the knot in my throat, "thanks. I needed the extra push. You're not going to do all the work for me, 'cause you know that this is something I need to do on my own. Thanks. Thanks for everything."

With that said, I re-pumped the pedals and got back into first gear and drove across the line.

 **=X=X=**

 **That's it folks, my shortest one shot. I hope you enjoyed it, and perhaps you can fill in the slight cliffhanger blanks for yourself. I have to go. Other stories to write, PMs to type and questions to answer.**

 **Take care.**

 **MRAY 4TW**


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